A Carpe Diem Snapshot:
With reportedly over 900 churches in the city of Rome, it's probably impossible to visit them all. This week, however, I managed to see three churches new to me including this very rare-for-Rome one: the Basilica of Santa Sofia, the national church of the Catholic Greek Ukrainian rite. Entering this church, located in a modern neighborhood of Rome, felt like passing into a different world- a world of glittering, sun-lit mosaics, and stories all over the walls. The portraits of 20th c. Ukrainian heroes depicted on either side of the front doors remember the lives of individuals who need to be known and honored.
The basilica exists thanks to one of those depicted there-- Archbishop Josyf Slipyj. Here is an excerpt from his Wikipedia bio: "After Soviet troops captured Lviv, Slipyj was arrested along with other bishops in 1945 by the NKVD, convicted to penal servitude, allegedly for collaboration with the Nazi regime. This was the first step in the planned liquidation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church by Soviet authorities. After being jailed in Lviv, Kyiv, and Moscow, he was sentenced by a Soviet court to eight years of hard labor in the Siberian Gulag. At this time Soviet authorities forcibly convened an assembly of 216 priests, and on 9 March 1946 and the following day, the so-called "Synod of Lviv" was held in St. George's Cathedral. The Union of Brest, the council at which the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church formally entered into ecclesiastic communion with the Holy See, was revoked. The Church was forcibly "rejoined" to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Slipyj rejected any offers of conversion into Orthodoxy and was continuously sentenced in 1953, 1957, 1962, thus totally imprisoned for 18 years in camps in Siberia and Mordovia (Dubravlag in Potma). Slipyj spent five years in Maklakovo (Krasnoyarsk region), where he wrote a multi-volume history of the Catholic Church in Ukraine... On 23 January 1963, he was freed by Nikita Khrushchev's administration after political pressure from Pope John XXIII and United States President John F. Kennedy. He arrived in Rome on 9 February 1963 in time to participate in the Second Vatican Council... In 1967–1968, the church of Santa Sofia on Via Boccea was built in Rome at his orders.... Although Slipyj was banned from entering Ukraine by the leaders of the USSR, including Nikita Khrushchev, nevertheless he refused to give up his Soviet passport. He died in Rome on 7 September 1984. His body lay in state at the church of Santa Sofia on Via Boccea; Pope John Paul II visited to pay his respects. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, his relics were returned to St. George's Cathedral in Lviv, and were reburied there on 27–29 August 1992. His cause for canonisation has been introduced at Rome."
Liturgical: Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
"But of that day or hour, no one knows,
neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon: A New World Unveiled
Fr Plant's Homily: Take the Fig Tree as a Parable
Sanctoral: Elizabeth of Hungary, +1231
Saint Elizabeth of Hungary is the Patron Saint of: Bakers, Catholic Charities, Secular Franciscan Order
Human: 497 BC – the first Saturnalia took place. It was an annual celebration in honor of the god of agriculture, Saturn. It was celebrated from 17 to 23 December. It was a day of reconciliation and equality. The most important rite of the day was that the masters provided table service for their slaves. In addition, all business activities were suspended. Saturn was offered sacrifices, and the joyful processions headed across the city to feasts and parties. The fathers of the families were given gifts – mainly wax candles and clay figurines (as a symbol of the human sacrifices in earlier times). The day marked the dedication anniversary of the Temple to Saturn in the Roman Forum in 497 BC. Originally it was celebrated on December 17, but over the years the holiday was prolonged, until it lasted until December 23, ending just before Sol Invictus. Over time, the holiday was extended to December 25.
The Writer's Almanac edition today.
Natural: After the Mass, we were treated to lunch at the Ukrainian residence next door. The girls were delighted by the fare, which inspired me to look up some information on traditional Ukrainian food!
Italian: Stare / essere sul pezzo (to be on the ball)
Quote: Everyone can keep house better than her mother until she trieth.
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